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japan for 10 days this summer


mongo

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i think i might have begun a thread on this before the great disappearance. anyway, there's a pretty good chance we will do a 10-day trip to japan this summer. if so, we'll probably be there around june 23-july 3. yes, i know this is not the optimal time to go to japan. but as academics and parents of school-going kids our calendars are pretty constrained. (also we'll be combining this trip with a short visit to seoul for logistical work for the second run of my off-campus program in 2026.) i have some preliminary questions for those who know japan well (ori, sivan) or those who've visited often (you know who you are):

1. what's a good way to break up a first-time 10-day visit? keep in mind that it is not unlikely we will return in the future (as it's easy to tag some time in japan on to the end of my biennial mumbai-seoul program). 5-3-2 tokyo-kyoto-osaka? just tokyo-osaka (7-3) or tokyo-kyoto (7-3), leaving the third city for a subsequent visit?

2. we will probably airbnb in tokyo at least. a quick glance at listings seems to show a number of decent-looking options in our price range (topping out at roughly $300/night all-in for all four of us). however, i have no sense of tokyo neighbourhoods/metro areas. i think ori advised me earlier to not worry about where we stay as long as it's close to a metro station. many of the nicer places in our range seem to be in sumida city or asakusa. a few places in shinjuku as well. any thoughts on these or other locations?

3. as the boys will be with us we're going to keep the eating to non-high-end places probably. they're far less picky than average american kids their age but there are still many things that they will not eat or which will be wasted on them (or which might cause consternation) at rigorous places. so we're not in the market for places that need concierges to book or where great hurt will be caused by uneaten things on plates. what are good places to look for recommendations for sushi, ramen, udon etc. that will be very good but not come with "temple of..." vibes.

4. what are the must-visit sights in your view if you had x days in tokyo/kyoto/osaka?

5. what are things to not do?

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The good news is those dates are generally not hellishly hot, but they are likely in wet season, so prepare to be moist. 

1. I don't know that there's any real reason to visit Osaka, but consider that Japan is genuinely compact and well connected - it's 90 minutes from Haneda to any airport in Hokkaido (where there's no wet season), and just slightly more to Kyushu. Flights are cheap ($35 last moment, probably $50-$80 otherwise) and very frequent, and there's no TSA style nonsense for most interior flights, so depending on your urban / kitschy urban / nature / hiking preferences you have many options. 

2. Airbnb is extremely limited in Tokyo, maybe take a look at serviced apartments for additional options. e.g. this company has good quality and value https://www.tokyoapartments.jp/ and ASR has a bazillion different properties (I imagine the Oakwood line is closest to what you'd want). Note that in some cases a listing will say it's for a month or more but that's just for regulatory reasons. I dunno about Sumida in general but if you have specific locations I can tell you about them. 

3. You can use Tabelog to filter places that are supposedly kid friendly. e.g. this is a list of Tonkatsu places in Tokyo that are kid friendly ordered by score https://tabelog.com/en/tokyo/rstLst/tonkatsu/?ChkKids=1&SrtT=rt&railroad=false and you can also look for places you find in other lists to see if they're tagged kid friendly, but as a guideline if the place seems fancy or booze-centric there might be rules about ages, lunch only, etc. even if they do take kids. The only challenge with ramen might be that you need to wait a while for 4 seats to become available, so maybe go off peak. 

5. Upskirting has been a criminal offense since 2023, so not that.

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With the caveat that I've been to Japan exactly once, in 2014:

Tsukiji Fish Market, Edo Tokyo Museum, Tokyo Sky Tree, Sensoji Temple, Akihabara (I still have PTSD from this, but the kids will probably like it).

And if you need to wind down, we spent three days at the Takaragawa Onsen, about 90:00 by train from Tokyo. Really, really nice.

I did not manage my meals well, so no recommendations there.

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thanks!

i should note that the boys are now monstrously large. they'll be 16.5 and almost 14 at the time of the trip. so they don't really need "kid-friendly" activities and menus. it's just that we can't do kaiseki meals featuring, for example, mountain yam grown at a particular altitude on mt. fuji by monks who have taken a vow of silence on fridays because they probably will not eat it and cultural stereotypes have led me to believe that this will cause a diplomatic incident.

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It used to be that if you were going to more than two destinations in Japan (I e. Tokyo + Kyoto + Somewhere else) your best bet as a foreigner was a Japan Rail Pass which needs to be purchased in the US before you go. I don't know if that math still works but worth investigating. Assuming you aren't flying to Kyushu or Hokkaido

Even casual/ kid friendly places will require booking. Not necessarily days in advance, but walk-ins are hard.

Tokyo is wonderful. But a lot of what makes it amazing are things that won't appeal to teen boys (dining, bars, walking neighborhoods checking out local retail/cafes etc)  Make a list of what sights you actually want to see and figure out how many days you need. 7 days might be a lot.  If you did 5 in Tokyo 2-3 in Kyoto/Nara and then 2 more some place else you'd have a pretty great first time trip.  

Edited by Anthony Bonner
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4 minutes ago, mongo said:

thanks!

i should note that the boys are now monstrously large. they'll be 16.5 and almost 14 at the time of the trip. so they don't really need "kid-friendly" activities and menus. it's just that we can't do kaiseki meals featuring, for example, mountain yam grown at a particular altitude on mt. fuji by monks who have taken a vow of silence on fridays because they probably will not eat it and cultural stereotypes have led me to believe that this will cause a diplomatic incident.

The best you can hope for as a visitor to Japan is "respectful buffoon". You will screw things up and everyone kind of expects you to. Just smile and own it. You'll drive yourself crazy trying to remember exactly which chair in a room you are supposed to sit it. 

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6 minutes ago, mongo said:

thanks!

i should note that the boys are now monstrously large. they'll be 16.5 and almost 14 at the time of the trip. so they don't really need "kid-friendly" activities and menus.

I should note that "kid friendly" means they'll allow them in. (but if they're big then just have them not shave for a couple of weeks and they'll pass as JP adults)

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20 hours ago, Anthony Bonner said:

It used to be that if you were going to more than two destinations in Japan (I e. Tokyo + Kyoto + Somewhere else) your best bet as a foreigner was a Japan Rail Pass which needs to be purchased in the US before you go. I don't know if that math still works but worth investigating. Assuming you aren't flying to Kyushu or Hokkaido

They've recently repriced it so it makes little sense for tourists. 

image.thumb.png.1ae8a9037b838e53eb300d3630544a9a.png

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7 hours ago, Anthony Bonner said:

I was talking to someone over the break who told me Kyoto felt like Disney world when the went this fall.

 

well, we managed to enjoy rome, florence and venice in june 2023 despite the crush and so i think we will be able to cope with crowds in kyoto (and being there in moist season will likely help too).

ori: why no reason to go to osaka? the web tells me it's japan's premier food city etc.. is this just a lie put out by tokyo foodies to redirect tourists?

i will say that my own initial instinct had been to spend 10 whole days in tokyo. our boys actually enjoy walking around cities and eating out (it's just certain kinds of restaurants that we would not take them to). and they'll probably be very excited to explore video game culture etc. all that said, i think we will go to kyoto at a minimum.

not likely to fly anywhere else in japan. this trip--if it comes together as envisioned will be a complicated msp-tokyo-seoul-delhi-msp deal. bullet train to kyoto/osaka and then to seoul from there. but we're unlikely to want to add any more plane time to the travel. june 2026 after the end of the next run of my program is when we might do a tokyo-hokkaido add-on.

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On 1/1/2025 at 1:17 PM, Orik said:

They've recently repriced it so it makes little sense for tourists. 

image.thumb.png.1ae8a9037b838e53eb300d3630544a9a.png

 

this is pretty crazy. as far as i can make out, a reserved seat on a tokyo-kyoto train will run about $92 and a reserved seat on a kyoto-osaka train will run around $20. that's $112. so just what kind of hectic 7-day itinerary would someone need to be on to make a $331 pass worth it?

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 12/31/2024 at 3:21 PM, Orik said:

 

2. Airbnb is extremely limited in Tokyo, maybe take a look at serviced apartments for additional options. e.g. this company has good quality and value https://www.tokyoapartments.jp/ and ASR has a bazillion different properties (I imagine the Oakwood line is closest to what you'd want). Note that in some cases a listing will say it's for a month or more but that's just for regulatory reasons. I dunno about Sumida in general but if you have specific locations I can tell you about them. 

 

 

asr doesn't seem to have much for our dates. i've sent in an enquiry to tokyo apartments. not sure if they will respond: on the page where you send in an enquiry it says reservations are not available to individuals with addresses outside japan. and so i selected the "in japan" address option. 

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i may try that in may. in the meantime i've booked a (cancellable) well-reviewed airbnb to have something in the back pocket. i'll send you the link and you can tell me if we are going to be in a yakuza den.

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a question about tablelog ratings: even when i turn off the "children welcome" filter the highest rated sushi spot in the general vicinity of our airbnb reservation has an average of 3.67 stars out of five. is this--as i suspect--just a case of there not much grade inflation in japan? or should i be wary of places that don't have at least four stars on tablelog?

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On 1/2/2025 at 5:48 PM, mongo said:

well, we managed to enjoy rome, florence and venice in june 2023 despite the crush and so i think we will be able to cope with crowds in kyoto (and being there in moist season will likely help too).

 

I'm not remotely suggesting you not go to Kyoto. its an incredible place. 

 

I've only been to osaka for work so can't really comment on it touristically.  but its often compared to chicago and that sounds right-ish. I think chicago has more stuff going on, but if you were flying 12 hours to the us would you put it in your top tier destinations? And i really like Chicago. 

Edited by Anthony Bonner
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we are pretty much set on spending 7 days in tokyo. the other 3 will probably be in kyoto but leaving options open for now.

have to admit that the thought of visiting the yoichi distillery on hokkaido does appeal.

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